This is true, Kat. Babe, it doesn’t even need to be a true crisis… There are lots of times your stash will come in handy. Unexpected company. Your kid telling you the night before the bake sale that he needs 3 dozen brownies to take to school the next morning. You get out of work late and are too tired to make a grocery run. Everyone in the family gets the flu and you can’t get to the store. The list goes on but the point is that you should be rotating, using and enjoying your stash as part of normal living. A cookbook you might find useful is “The Prepper’s Cookbook” by Tess Pennington. Lots of ideas for setting up your base stash and great recipes too.

The former Atlas E Missile Site, located 25 miles west of Topeka, has been redubbed the Subterra Castle—a turn-key property ready for post-apocalyptic inhabitants with four bedrooms and two bathrooms. The main residence boasts 5,500 square feet of below-ground living space, and another 3,500 square feet in a great room complete with a stage (you’ll have to amuse yourself somehow when civilization is gone). The facility was built in 1961 at a cost over $3 million, or $26.5 million in today’s dollars. It was purchased for only $48,000 in the early 1980s, and has since been renovated complete with solar panels, a diesel generator, and an 11,000-square- foot underground garage with a 47-ton drive-in door. Up on the surface, there’s a separate 750-square-foot house, and the 34-acre property comes with a stocked pond, a chicken coop, and orchards where walnuts, apples, and pears grow.

I confess that I can go for days eating the same meal of baked potatoes over and over again. That said, most people need and want variety. This is especially true for children, the elderly and the infirm who may already be picky eaters. Plus, you need a variety of foods items in order to get a full complement of nutritional value from your meals.

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The EMP/grid down threat has been our biggest concern and the primary focus of our preparedness plan. Learning to live without electricity, or at least practicing from time to time exposes the weaknesses in planning. We get our water from a well, so we plan to use an Emergency Well Tube (www.emergencywelltube.com) if we lose electrical service. We also have manual kitchen appliances and other hand tools to fill-in for the corded ones should the need arise.

The Cold War era civil defense programs promoted public atomic bomb shelters, personal fallout shelters, and training for children, such as the Duck and Cover films. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) long directed its members to store a year's worth of food for themselves and their families in preparation for such possibilities;[3] but the current teaching advises only a three-month supply.[3]

Communication: Our preferred portable radio is the BeoFeng BF-F8HP 8-watt two-way radio. You don’t need a Ham license to listen to local emergency services and broadcast when SHTF — see our beginners guide to amateur radio. We like this signal mirror instead of the cheap acrylic ones that scratch and fade quickly. Also, try these tiny whistles and signal flare kit.

Where there used to be occasional forays into the bush with minimal equipment to test his mettle, now there are several buried caches in specific but remote bug-out locations on public land. The caches include dried beans, rice, water purification and fire-starting devices. “Some people say – well, what if you never use it. But it doesn’t cost much and, if we do need it, it is there.”

I will not stock PAncakes because they are water wasteful. You hydrate something just to boil it off. Also I don’t need the sweetness. Raw, organic honey has enzymes helpful for cuts though. A good medicinal vector I think. NOT for eating. The single most helpful SHTF thing you can do is eat well and get your appetite down before the fact. Eat light to heavy and don’t eat when you are not hungry EVER. Yesterday I only ate one meal and even then not really cause I was hungry but kinda for fun. IT was two potatoes. I had the energy to get shit done all day because I eat veggies when I need to eat. And I take my vitamins: Vitamin A! Vitamin D! And Vitamin K! The holy trinity of eye health, mental health, bone/teeth health and everything else.
The ceramic filters in the Berkeys can filter lots and lots of water before they need to be cleaned. Thousands of gallons, as I recall. Also, they come in several sizes, so you can pick one to most closely fit your needs. I bought a “Big” Berkey along with a complete set of spare filters. It is in my supply room along with my FD supplies, and back up emergency paper supplies.
181. Animal husbandry – Caring for animals, how to raise them and breed them is animal husbandry. Chickens, goats, cattle, horses, for whatever reason can provide milk, eggs, transportation, carry loads, etc … and proper care is something that must be learned. Chickens are a great place to start. Get 3-5 chickens, a proper chicken coop, then some feed and you are good to go. Craigslist is a quick place to find baby chicks for sale. Did I mention your reward is delicious eggs everyday! Hint: The Leghorn breed lay the most eggs …
Our grandparents were the original preppers, really. They could make a chicken last for two weeks. When my wife and I are wandering around the supermarket, I’ll keep my eye out. I’m always looking at a product’s shelf life. I don’t want to buy food that has a shelf life of two weeks; I need five years plus. It’s an attitude, really, but it’s also a fascinating hobby. I’m constantly learning survival techniques: how to forage, hunt, trap, fish, purify water. And I’m informed on larger environmental and political issues by friends in the know. People think I’m a tin hat-wearing nutter, sitting here guarding 3,000 tins of beans, but it’s not all-consuming. It’s like having a spare tyre in your car, or some winter basics: a torch, some candles, a sleeping bag. You can leave it at that, you don’t have to go mad. That’s how I started – I just happened to carry on.
More than 800 bunkers were used to store weapons and ammunition for the military, and in the 1950’s it was listed as one of the largest cities in the state. Fort Igloo was closed during the summer of 1967 when the government shut it down. It has been over 50 years and the ghost town of Fort Igloo will now be transformed by Vivos and its founder Robert Vicino into the xPoint Survival Community.
If an alternate location is not practical, consider storing items at various locations around your home. Not everything needs to be on shelves in the basement. Spread things out so that if the basement gets flooded, you still have dry items in the upstairs bedroom. Use your imagination and don’t forget to do the very best you can to package everything so it is resistant to moisture and pests.
This one I’ve started doing recently, especially with the foods I’ve been buying online through either Amazon Pantry or Waitrose’s online delivery. Am really happy having this list around as it means I don’t have to remember what I need more of to hit the limit for free shipping or to have enough to get a certain amount off. It also means I don’t miss out on buying things I was running low on, as if there are staples I regularly buy and I forgot about them long enough to miss adding them to a cart, I usually really regret it.
Other newsletters and books followed in the wake of Ruff's first publication. In 1975, Kurt Saxon began publishing a monthly tabloid-size newsletter called The Survivor, which combined Saxon's editorials with reprints of 19th century and early 20th century writings on various pioneer skills and old technologies. Kurt Saxon used the term survivalist to describe the movement, and he claims to have coined the term.[9]
It isn't hysteria, and GMO isn't 'evolution'. One of the biggest issues for preppers and survival is that GMO seeds will not reproduce in the same way if the seeds are saved and re-used. In fact, in many instances (maybe all?), it's illegal to save the seeds and re-use them! It's far better to track down heirloom seeds that are native to your area and/or compatible with your climate. A good place to start looking is